Cambodia Weeks 2 and 3

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. Things have been busy, and I've mainly just been lazy. I'll try and update the pictures soon.

Week two of our trip in Cambodia was a national holiday, so everyone had the week off for the water festival. This is where the flow in the Mekong changes direction and starts flowing into the lake (I think). It also has some religious significance and coincides with the new moon. Since the rains haven't really stopped, I don't think that the flow actually did change in direction, but no one really mentioned anything. We went into the city for one day to see the festival where there were boat races, lots of people and lots of food. Some areas were wall to wall people and it was hard even to get around. The Royal Palace was all lit up in the evening and there was a beautiful fireworks display. While there, through the crowds I even managed to meet up with a friend from Australia which as exciting.

During the weekends we usually try and go into the city which is a nice break from the bungalows. There's a lot more to do and gives us the chance to do some sight seeing. So far we've gone to see the Silver Pagoda and Royal Palace as well as a museum which is one of the converted prisons that was used during the Khmer Rouge regime. Displays at the museum showed evidence of the brutality people had been subjected to. Their cells were there, as well as torture machines, and pictures of many of the prisoners including the elderly and small children. These included before and after pictures of people who had been tortured and starved. It's hard to believe it was such a short time ago and you can see a lot of the devastation of the Khmer Rouge is still being felt in the country today. During this regime the cities were emptied and doctors, intellectuals, government workers, artists, musicians, basically anyone with any education was executed. Even people who wore glasses, because this was seen as a sign of intelligence. People were forced out of the city into the villages where they worked long and hard hours for no pay and were subject to food shortages much of the time. Despite farming so much food, they sent the food away to China where the KR (Khmer Rouge) exchanged food for ammunition. They were often moved from village to village so people did not get to know each other well enough to form any sort of rebellion or revolution against the government (known as the Angkor). It's estimated that about 2 million people (although this number is debated) died in this regime started in April 1975, many from starvation. So today you see that much of the population are under the age of 25 in Cambodia. From what I've heard from those living here, things have rapidly been getting better in the last 10 years and the infrastructure is improving and tourism has gone way up. It's seems there is still a long way to go though.

As for our project, we're finally getting things under way, we've been doing a baseline of whats happening in the pond after not really being maintained for a while. We've been testing different parameters in the field and the lab. This week we're going to test out the rock bed filters that are adjacent to the pond and make sure they're even working. Eventually we'll have to drain the entire thing, and restart the whole process so monitoring can begin from the very start to test all the different variables going on in the fish pond. We've been starting to learn some of the different challenges involved with any kind of development work. I'm sure we've only really hit the tip of the iceberg but we've been learning to be creative with what we do have and have a whole new appreciation for duct tape.

Other then the fish pond we've been working with the students here three times a week on their english lessons. We've been using the TOEFL book as a basis for their classes since many of them want to go abroad to do their masters.

Adjusting to life in the village has been interesting. The heat has been one thing, the mice, geckos and ants have been another. But you just get used to it all. The people are extremely friendly and warm which pretty much has made a lot of the other stuff not matter so much. But that's just as long as the mice stay out of my bungalow!

I'll try to update with pictures soon

sy